The first major addition has arrived in "Apex Legends," the wildly popular new Battle Royale game.
The "Wild Frontier" expansion includes the first new character, Octane, and the game's first Battle Pass — a massive set of unlockable items tied to your level.
At $9.50, the Battle Pass is an inexpensive way to add a lot more content to an already-excellent game...especially since "Apex Legends" itself is a free download.
The first major content update to "Apex Legends" arrived this week, and i... Tags: Microsoft, Trends, Sony, Battle pass, Apex Legends

AMD's graphics-processing unit was chosen to run Google's new streaming-video-game platform.
The presence of AMD CEO Lisa Su at Tuesday's developer's conference could be a sign the two companies will work more closely in the future.
Watch AMD trade live.
AMD was the biggest winner on Tuesday, spiking 12%, after Google unveiled Stadia, its plan to upend the video-game industry.
At its developers' conference on Tuesday, Google formally announced it would use AMD's graphics-processing units for... Tags: Google, Trends, Intel, Sony, Nintendo, Amd, Gpu, Lisa Su, Ihor Dusaniwsky, S3 Partners, AMD Epyc, Mark Lapacis

Those who hope virtual reality becomes the next phase of video games have been waiting expectantly for a “killer app” to justify the technology’s existence. For many, Sony’s PlayStation VR game “Astro Bot Rescue Mission” was that game. Released last October,, “Astro Bot” is a PSVR platforming game in which you control a small robot […] Tags: Features, Sony, Vr, GDC, PSVR, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, GDC 2019

The Disney-Fox merger closed on Wednesday, and Disney now owns the film rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four.
Fox made three "Fantastic Four" movies in the last fifteen years, and none were resounding successes. The 2015 reboot is an infamous disaster.
Disney should not rush the characters to the big screen, and instead utilize its upcoming streaming service, Disney+.
With Disney's acquisition of Fox, which closed on Wednesday, Disney now owns Fox's film studio, many of its television asset... Tags: Disney, US, Trends, Fox, Netflix, Sony, Deadpool, Stan Lee, Hulu, Avengers, Marvel Studios, Chris Evans, Jack Kirby, Tom Hiddleston, Reed, Susan

Sling TV and DirecTV Now are taking opposite approaches to OTT growth.
DirecT V Now increased its prices, which could cause it to lose half its sub scribers this year, while Sling is ratcheting up promotions to attract new customers.
The differences in approach reveal the fundamental differences between the two companies and the future of live digital TV.
After competing head to head for years, Sling TV and DirecTV Now, the two biggest digital live TV services by subscribers are taking opposi... Tags: Google, Hbo, Abc, Youtube, US, Trends, Comcast, Sony, Cbs, Hulu, Viacom, Macquarie, AT T, Frost Sullivan, Alan Wolk, DirecTV

UPDATE 2: Tencent Music [TME] stock took a hit Wednesday after the streamer's first post-IPO report to investors included a $127 million quarterly loss. Tencent stock closed Wednesday at $16.66 USD, down $1.91 or 10.29% and fell another 1% in after hours trading.
Investors were not happy, even though the company had forecast the loss caused by a one time $221 million stock issuance to Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.
More details: Tencent Music Posts $127M Loss, ... Tags: Music, Sony, Tencent, Bruce Houghton, Warner Music Group, Tencent Music

USgamer reports that retail giant Walmart is working on a game streaming service, hopping on the now-heavily-burdened bandwagon that includes Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and Sony. That’s from the media outlet’s sources, which say that the company has been in talks with game developers and publishers about it over the past few months. If the report is accurate, we may just have another major player in the game streaming space. But even if Walmart is working on this, it may well be a while ... Tags: Startups, Gaming, Walmart, Sony, Google Walmart, Google Nvidia Microsoft Amazon

Have you been wondering why we haven’t heard much about that upcoming Masters of the Universe movie in a while? Maybe it’s because the filmmakers were waiting for a star to seemingly appear out of nowhere and become He-Man...which may have just happened.Read more... Tags: Science, Sony, Masters Of The Universe, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, Noah Centineo, He Man

Tim Merel
Contributor
Tim Merel is managing director of Digi-Capital.
More posts by this contributor
For AR/VR 2.0 to live, AR/VR 1.0 must die
Chinese investment into computer vision technology and AR surges as U.S. funding dries up
There has been some negative sentiment surrounding the games industry recently, with stock prices of public games companies in question in both the U.S. and China. While being contrarian to market senti... Tags: Google, Gaming, Facebook, Column, Asia, Japan, Steve Jobs, China, Russia, India, Tech, Sony, Tencent, Pokemon, North America, Latin America

[UPDATE] Tencent Music [TME] stock took a beating Wednesday after the streamer's first post-IPO report to investors included a $127 million quarterly loss. TME stock closed trading on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday at 16.66 USD down $1.91 or 10.29%.
Investors were not happy, even though the company had forecast the loss caused by a one time $221 million stock issuance to Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.
More details: Tencent Music Posts $127M Loss, 664M Mon... Tags: Music, Sony, New York Stock Exchange, Bruce Houghton, Warner Music Group

After peppering Google employees with questions regarding Stadia’s latency, pricing and supported devices to mostly no avail, I got my hands on one of their new controllers and pressed play on the Doom Eternal gameplay they were showing off on a big-screen TV.
Things started off pretty ugly. The frame rate dropped to a fast-paced PowerPoint presentation, the resolution dipped between 4K crispness and indecipherable blurriness and latency seemed to be as much as a half-second. As the Google em... Tags: Google, TC, Gaming, Youtube, San Francisco, Tech, Sony, Mountain View, San Jose, Gpu, Phil Harrison, Stadia, GDC 2019, Google Stadia

"Fortnite" is stronger than ever, with nearly 250 million players.
That's double what Epic Games revealed in June 2018, when just 125 million players were registered.
It looks like the competition over Battle Royale isn't slowing down.
The biggest game in the world — "Fortnite" — is showing no signs of slowing down.
That's clear from the latest statistic to come out of "Fortnite" creator Epic Games: More than 250 million players have registered accounts, Epic Games revealed on Wednesday.
Bet... Tags: Microsoft, US, Trends, Tetris, Canada, Sony, Nintendo, Minecraft, Drake, Battle Royale, Fortnite, Tyler Ninja Blevins

Epic Games, the company behind 'Fortnite,' has welcomed more than 85 million users to its PC gaming store since December 2018.
Much of that success can be credited to "Fortnite." Since July 2017, a total of 250 million players have played "Fortnite" on PC, video game consoles, and smartphones.
Steam, the most popular platform for PC games, has 90 million monthly users and 47 million active players each day.
The success of "Fortnite" has helped the game's creators carve out a major stake in th... Tags: Google, Google Play Store, Trends, Epic, Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Fortnite, Xbox One Nintendo, Epic Games Store, Epic Games Store Epic

Google
Yesterday Google announced its long-anticipated streaming game platform, Stadia. In the news post we called it an “invasion” of gaming: this combination platform and delivery service has the potential to compete with consoles, PCs, and mobile games, all at once.
Google’s ambition is huge, but it’s appropriate to the task. The game industry as we know it is stagnating in terms of innovation, but its biggest corporate players are well-entrenched and experienced. If Stadia is to compet... Tags: Chrome, Google, Amazon, Crafts, Verizon, Microsoft, EA, Sony, Nvidia, Nintendo, Ubisoft, GDC, Havok, Raymond, Sony Microsoft, Jade Raymond

AMD's graphics processing unit was chosen to run Google's new streaming-video-game platform.
The presence of AMD CEO Lisa Su at Tuesday's developer's conference could be a sign the two companies will work more closely in the future.
Watch AMD trade live.
AMD was the biggest winner on Tuesday, spiking 12%, after Google unveiled Stadia, its plan to upend the video-game industry.
At its developer's conference on Tuesday, Google formally announced that it would use AMD's graphics processing u... Tags: Google, Trends, Intel, Sony, Nintendo, Amd, Gpu, Lisa Su, Ihor Dusaniwsky, S3 Partners, AMD Epyc, Mark Lapacis

Shadow
Shadow wants to sell you a dream: a super-powerful, always-connected computer that you can access from anywhere and with any device. That computer is meant primarily for gaming, but since it’s running Windows, it can also do anything a normal PC can do.
And at a basic level, Shadow does that. The service works, and the experience is surprisingly good… so long as you’re accessing it from another computer. Move to a phone, a tablet, or even Shadow’s first-party Ghost hardware, and thi... Tags: Crafts, Sony, Nvidia, Gpu, Intel Xeon, Steam Origin, Michael Crider

"That was the best acting I've ever seen in my whole life." Sony has unveiled the very first teaser trailer for Quentin Tarantino's latest movie, his 9th feature film, titled Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. This one is set in Los Angeles in 1969, right smack in the middle of Hollywood (as the title hints), taking us back to the final years of Hollywood's Golden Age. The story involves a faded TV actor and his stunt double who embark on an odyssey to achieve fame and success in the film indust... Tags: Hollywood, Movies, Trailer, Los Angeles, Sony, Quentin Tarantino, Luke Perry, To Watch

I recently learned that Adobe quietly dropped a beta version of the free DNG converter to help people with newly released cameras (since the last official update in Feb) gain support for their raw photos in Lightroom and Camera Raw. I can’t remember the last time that happened, and I thought it was pretty cool for them to make this available in between official updates.
The following cameras are supported by this version of the converter:
Canon EOS RPPanasonic LUMIX DC-FZ1000M2 (DC-FZ10002... Tags: Photography, Featured, News, Plugins, Sony, Lightroom, Lightroom Cc, Panasonic LUMIX, Lightroom Classic, DNG Converter, Canon EOS RPPanasonic LUMIX

Nintendo dropped as much as 4.6 percent and Sony declined 4.5 percent Wednesday, the biggest intraday drop for both stocks in six weeks. Stadia lets developers put games on a streaming platform that will allow players to access the action through the web, skipping expensive consoles or personal computers, Google announced at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Tags: Google, Science, Sony, Nintendo, Nintendo Sony Fall After Google, Gaming Service

Scheduled to close just after midnight EDT Wednesday, The Walt Disney Company’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s filmed entertainment assets makes the Burbank-based Mouse House, for years the most successful movie maker in Hollywood, by far the biggest of the five remaining major studios.
“This is an extraordinary and historic moment for us — one that will create significant long-term value for our company and our shareholders,” Robert Iger, Disney’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement Tuesda... Tags: Star Wars, Business, Hollywood, News, California, Disney, Georgia, Sport, Fox, Netflix, Soccer, Sony, Alvin, Walt Disney Company, Iger, Harrison Ford

Google just announced a huge new gaming initiative: A Netflix-like video game streaming platform named Stadia.
The service is intended to run high-resolution, blockbuster games on any device that runs Google's Chrome — from smartphones to computers to TVs and tablets.
Alongside the announcement of Stadia itself, Google unveiled a new controller and a new game development studio.
After years of rumors and speculation, Google officially detailed its plans to enter the video game business on Tue... Tags: Google, Microsoft, Trends, Netflix, Sony, Nintendo, Tokyo, Sundar Pichai, Microsoft Sony, Instead Google, Phil Harrison